CHAPTER 16
July 1869
It had been two years since Emmett rode off on his own, and Smoke had not heard anything from him since. He wasn’t surprised by that, given that Emmett had written only two letters the whole time he was away fighting the war.
Nothing of the boy was left. Smoke was a man, fully grown and hard in body, face, and eyes. The bay he had ridden west hadn’t survived the first year after Emmett left. The horse had fallen on the ice and broken his leg. Smoke had had to put him down, but Preacher found another horse for him, a large, mean-tempered Appaloosa. The Indian had sold him cheap, because he hadn’t been able to break him.
Strangely, not only to the Indian who sold him, but to other Indians who knew the animal, the horse seemed to bond immediately with Smoke. He was a stallion, and he was mean, his eyes warning any knowledgeable person away. In addition to its distinctive markings—the mottled hide, vertically striped hooves, and pale eyes—the Appaloosa had a perfectly shaped numeral seven between his eyes. And that became his name—Seven.
“Smoke, I’ve done learned you about as much as I know how to learn anyone,” Preacher said one summer morning. “There ain’t no doubt in my mind, but that you could light in the middle of the mountains some’ers and live as good as me or any other mountain man I ever knowed could.
“But truth to tell, the time of the mountain man is gone. There warn’t even no Rendezvous this year, ’n I don’t know if they’ll ever be another ’n. Just be glad you got to see one of ’em when you did.”
“I am glad,” Smoke said. “If I live to be as old a man as you are, I’ll still remember gettin’ to go to that Rendezvous.”
“Whoa, now! Are you tellin’ me that’s all you’re goin’ to remember? That you ain’t goin’ to ’member nothin’ else I learned you in all this time?”
Smoke laughed. “I reckon I’ll be rememberin’ that, as well.”
Shortly after that conversation an old mountain man rode into their camp. “You just as ugly as I remembered, Preacher,” he said in the form of greeting.
“I didn’t think you was even still alive, Grizzly,” Preacher said. “I heard you got eat up by a pack o’ wolves. No, wait. That ain’t right. Now that I think on it, they said you was so old and dried up that the wolves didn’t want nothin’ to do with you.”
Smoke had already learned that mountain men insulted each other whenever possible. It was their way of showing affection.
“Can I talk in front of the boy?” Grizzly asked.
“Anythin’ you can tell me, you can say in front of him,” Preacher replied.
Smoke poured himself a cup of coffee and waited.
“A man rode into the Hole about two months ago. All shot up, he was. And ’sides that, he had a bad cough.”
“Is he still alive?” Smoke blurted.
The old man turned cold eyes toward him. “Don’t ever interrupt a man when he’s palaverin’. ’Tain’t polite. One thing about Indians, they know manners. They know to allow a man to speak his piece without interrupting.”
“Sorry,” Smoke said.
“Accepted. No, he’s dead. Strange man. Dug his own grave. Come the time, I buried him. He’s planted on that there little plain at the base of the high peak east side of the canyon. Zenobia Peak, it’s called. You remember it, Preacher?”
Preacher nodded.
The old mountain man reached inside his war bag and pulled out a heavy sack and tossed it to Smoke. “This would be your’n, I reckon. It’s from your pa, a right smart amount of gold.” Again, he dipped into the war bag and pulled out a rawhide-wrapped flat object. “And this is a piece of paper with words on it. Names, your pa said, of the men who put lead in him. He said you’d know what to do, but for me to tell you, don’t do nothing rash.”
His business done, the old man rose to his feet. “I done what I give my word I’d do. Now I’ll be goin’ on.”
* * *
Smoke had purposely held off reading the letter until he found his pa’s grave. When he did find it, he used a rock to chisel his pa’s name onto it.
EMMETT JENSEN
BORN 1815 DIED 1869
He wasn’t sure that 1815 was correct, but he figured it was close enough, especially since he was the only relative left who would ever see it, or even care about it. He wasn’t counting Janey.
With the words chiseled onto the stone, Smoke moved it over to the mound of earth that was the gravesite. The stone was big and hard to move, and he was glad. That meant it would be too heavy for any vandals to mess with it for no reason other than to make mischief.
Not until the tombstone was put into position did Smoke turn his attention to the letter. He opened it and read it by the fading light.
Son,
I found some of the men who killed your brother Luke and stoled the gold that belonged to the Gray. They was more of them than I first thought. I killed two of them but they got lead in me and I had to hightail it out. Ackerman is the man Luke thought was his best friend, and the one that betrade him. He got away.
Came here, but not going to make it. Son, you don’t owe nothin’ to the cause of the Gray. So don’t get it in your mind you do.
I got word that your sis Janey left that gambler. Don’t know where she is now, but I wouldn’t fret much about her. She is mine, but I think she is trash. Don’t know what she got that bad streek from.
I’m gettin’ tared and seein is hard. I love you Smoke.
Pa
“You’re goin’ out after ’em now, ain’t you,” Preacher said. “The fella that kilt your ma, and the ones that kilt your brother and your pa.” It was more a statement than a question.
“Yeah, I am,” Smoke said.
“Like I said when your pa left, they’s some things a man just has to do.”
* * *
Over the next couple months, Smoke’s justice was thorough and extreme.
Two names he learned about belonged to men who had been complicit in shooting his brother, stealing the Confederate gold, and ultimately killing his pa. Ted Casey was the fourth man who’d stolen the Confederacy gold with Stratton, Richards, and Potter—the men Emmett had set out to find and kill. Ackerman had ridden with Quantrill. Smoke didn’t know Ackerman’s first name, but he’d learned from someone he met that the Confederate deserter owned a ranch just outside Canon City, Colorado.
“Sounds like all them boys done right good for themselves,” Preacher said. “They all come out here and commenced ranchin’.”
“They started ranchin’ on the gold they stole from the South after shootin’ my brother,” Smoke said sourly.
* * *
Casey’s place—TC Ranch—was close by so they headed there first. The shootout was deadly, with the ranch hands putting up quite a fight before they were killed. Casey wasn’t among those killed at the ranch, but Smoke found him, then hung him in front of a sheriff and scores of people from the nearby town. Nobody made any real effort to stop him.
“Now,” Smoke said. “I’m goin’ to Canon City.”
“We’re goin’, you mean,” Preacher said.
“All right, we’re goin’ to Canon City.”
“Oreodelphia,” Preacher said.
“What?”
“That’s what they wanted to name it. Oreodelphia, but there couldn’t nobody hardly even say it, let alone spell it, so they wound up callin’ it Canon City.”
Smoke frowned, thinking that was more information than he needed to know at the moment. “Do you know how to get there?”
“I know.”
“Then why are we standing here jawboning?”
“Boy, you got to learn patience, you know that?”
* * *
“What is his name?” Ackerman asked.
“Smoke.”
“Smoke? Somebody named Smoke killed Casey and all his hands?”
“His last name is Jensen. I was told that would mean somethin’ to you.”
Ackerman smiled. “Luke had a brother ’n a sister he used to talk about some. His sister was named Janey. Accordin’ to Luke, she was a real good looker. She must be somethin’ by now. His brother was named Kirby. I ain’t never heard of anyone named Smoke Jensen.”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, he’s Emmett Jensen’s son.”
“Damn,” Ackerman said. “Then it has to be the one Luke said was Kirby. Smoke must just be the name he’s took for some reason. And he’s comin’ here, you say?”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“All right. We’ll just take care of ’im when he gets here. Once we kill him, there won’t be nobody left but the sister. An’ she ain’t likely to go out after nobody.”
* * *
For two days, Smoke and Preacher waited and relaxed in Canon City, making a special effort to keep out of trouble. Smoke bathed twice behind the barbershop, and Preacher told him if he didn’t stop that, he was going to come down with some dreadful illness.
The mountain man and the gunfighter were civil to the men and polite to the ladies. Some of the ladies batted their eyes and swished their bustled fannies as they passed by Smoke, but he paid them no attention.
“You boys are sure taking your time buying supplies,” the sheriff noted on the second day.
“We like to think things through before buying,” Preacher told him. “Smoke here is a right cautious man when it comes to partin’ with the greenback. You might even call him tight.”
The sheriff didn’t find that amusing. “You boys wouldn’t be waiting for Ackerman to make a move, would you?”
“Ackerman?” Smoke looked at the sheriff. “What is an Ackerman?”
The sheriff’s smile was grim. “What do you boys do for a living? I have a law on the books about vagrants.”
“I’m retired,” Preacher told him. “Enjoying the sunset of my years, I am. Smoke here, he runs a string of horses.”
“Would you like to buy a horse?” Smoke asked. “I’ve got some really nice ones, and bein’ as you are with the law, I can give you a real good deal.”
“I ought to run you both out of this town.”
“Why?” Smoke asked. “On what charge? We haven’t caused you any trouble.”
“Yet.” The sheriff’s back was stiff with anger as he walked away. The man knew a set up when he saw one.
But his feelings were mixed. Ackerman and his bunch of rowdies were all troublemakers, and he owed them nothing. He swung no wide political loop in this country, and there were persistent rumors that Ackerman had been a thief and a murderer during the war, as well as a deserter. The sheriff could not abide a coward.
He sighed. If he was right in reading the young man called Smoke, Ackerman’s future looked very bleak.
A hard ridden horse hammered the street into dust. A cowhand from the Bar X slid to a halt in front of the sheriff’s office. “Ackerman and his bunch is ridin’ in, Sheriff,” the cowhand said, still panting from his ride. “They’re huntin’ bear. He told me to tell you he’s going to kill this kid called Smoke and anyone else that gets in his way.”
The sheriff’s smile grudgingly filled with admiration. The kid’s patience had paid off. Ackerman had made his boast and his threat, which meant that anything the kid did now could only be called self-defense.
The sheriff thanked the cowboy and told him to hunt a hole to hide in. He crossed the street and told his deputy to clear the street from the apothecary to the blacksmith shop.
In five minutes, the main street resembled a ghost town. A yellow dog was the only living thing that had not cleared out. Behind curtains, closed doors, and shuttered windows, men and women watched and waited, anticipating the roar of gunfire from the street.
At the edge of town, Ackerman, a bull of a man with small, mean eyes, stopped for a moment. With a small wave, he started the five cowhands with him down the street, riding slowly, six abreast.
Standing on the porch of the hotel with Smoke, Preacher stuffed his mouth full of chewing tobacco, then they walked out into the street to face the six men.
“I’ve come for you, kid,” said the big man in the center of the riders.
“Oh? Who are you?” Smoke asked.
“You know who I am, kid. I’m Ackerman.”
“Ah yes!” Smoke said. “I do know that. You’re the man who was supposed to be my brother’s best friend, but you helped kill him by shooting him in the back. Then you stole the gold he was guarding.”
Inside the hotel, pressed against the wall, the desk clerk listened intently, his mouth open in anticipation of gunfire.
“You’re a liar. I didn’t shoot your brother. That was Potter and his bunch.”
“You stood by and watched it. Then you stole the gold.”
“It was war, kid.”
“But you were on the same side,” Smoke said. “That not only makes you a killer, it makes you a traitor and a coward.”
“I’ll kill you for saying that!”
“You’ll burn in hell a long time before I’m dead,” Smoke told him.
Ackerman grabbed for his pistol.
The street exploded in gunfire and black powder fumes. Horses screamed and bucked in fear. One rider was thrown to the dust by his lunging mustang.
Smoke took the men on the left, Preacher the men on the right. The battle lasted no more than ten or twelve seconds. When the noise and the gun smoke cleared, five men lay in the street, two of them dead. Two more would die from their wounds. The one shot in the side would live. Ackerman had been shot three times—once in the belly, once in the chest, and one ball had taken him in the side of the face as the muzzle of the .36 had lifted him with each blast. Dead, he still sat in his saddle. The big man finally leaned to one side and toppled from his horse, one booted foot hanging up in the stirrup. The horse shied, then began walking down the dusty street, dragging Ackerman and leaving a bloody trail on the ground behind him.
The excited clerk ran out the door. “I heard it all! You were right, Mr. Smoke. Yes, sir. Right all the way.” He looked at Smoke. “Why, you’ve been wounded, sir.”
A slug had nicked the young man on the cheek, another had punched a hole in the fleshy part of his left arm, high up. Both were minor wounds.
Preacher had been grazed on the leg. He spat into the street. “Damn near swallowed my terbacky.”
“I never saw a draw that fast,” a man spoke from the storefront. “It was a blur.”
The sheriff and the deputy came out of the jail, walking down the bloody, dusty street. Both were carrying Greeners, double-barreled, twelve-gauge shotguns.
“Right down the street,” the sheriff said, pointing, “is the doctor’s office. Get yourselves patched up and then get out of town. You have one hour.”
“Sheriff, it was a fair fight,” the desk clerk said. “I seen it.”
The sheriff never took his eyes off Smoke. “One hour,” he repeated.
“We’ll be gone.” Smoke wiped a smear of blood from his cheek.
Townspeople began hauling the bodies off. The local photographer set up his cumbersome equipment and began popping flash powder, sealing the gruesome scene for posterity. He also took a picture of Smoke.
The editor of the paper walked up to stand by the sheriff. He watched the old man and the young gun hand walk down the street. He truly had seen it all. The old man had killed one man and wounded another. The young man had killed four. “What’s the young man’s name?”
“His name is Smoke Jensen. But if you ask me, he’s the devil.”
* * *
“Your pa would be pleased,” Preacher said as they rode out of town within the hour assigned by the sheriff. “Do you plan to get the other men he was looking for?”
“Yes, I do. But I’m going after Shardeen first.”
“Before you start out, I want you to come to Denver with me. I’ve got a fella there I’d like for you to meet.”
“Somebody who can help me find Shardeen?”
“You might say that,” Preacher replied, without being any more specific.
* * *
It took them three days to get to Denver.
Preacher led Smoke to a low-lying building made of white limestone. A United States flag flew from the flagpole out front, and as they started into the building, Smoke saw a sign chiseled above the doorway. UNITED STATES FEDERAL OFFICE BUILDING.
“What are we going in here for?”
“You’re askin’ questions again. Didn’t I tell you a long time ago that when words is goin’ outta your mouth, nothin’ can be comin’ in your ears? You learn quicker if you’re just quiet and pay attention,” Preacher said.
Smoke smiled. “Have you always been such a cantankerous old fart?”
“Pretty much,” Preacher said.
Both men were wearing buckskins, and both were a little more gamey than the average citizen of Denver. When Swayne Hodge, the office clerk, looked up and saw the two men coming in, he became a little agitated. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, are you lost?”
“Pilgrim, I been out here more ’n fifty years ’n I ain’t never been lost but one time. I cain’t say as I was all that lost then, since it didn’t take me more ’n a month to find my way back to the trail.”
“But you do know that this is a federal office building, don’t you?”
“I didn’t exactly figure it to be a house of ill repute,” Preacher said.
“Oh, my,” Hodge said, clearly discomforted by the vulgarity.
“Preacher! What are you doing here?” Another voice spoke openly and without reservation.
“Excuse me, Marshal Holloway, do you actually know these, uh, gentlemen?” Hodge asked, stumbling over the word gentlemen.
“I don’t know both of them,” the marshal said. “But I certainly know the older gentleman. Preacher, come into my office and introduce me to your young friend.”
Hodge remained standing, watching with his mouth agape as Uriah B. Holloway, United States Marshal for the Colorado District, holding his commission by U.S. Senate confirmation since April 10, 1866, led the two unwashed men into his office.
“Have a seat, men,” Marshal Holloway offered.
“Thank ye, kindly, Uriah.” Preacher held his hand out toward Smoke. “This here is Smoke Jensen.”
Holloway frowned. “Smoke? His name is Smoke?”
“It’s as much Smoke as my name is Preacher.”
The marshal chuckled. “All right, Preacher, I’ll go along with that. Smoke, it is good to meet you.”
“Marshal,” Smoke replied, taking the lawman’s extended hand.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Angus Shardeen?” Preacher asked.
Holloway’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’ve heard of him. What about him?”
“First, let me ask what you know about him,” Preacher replied.
“He has federal and state arrest warrants out on him,” Holloway replied. “He’s wanted for murder, robbery, arson, and probably half a dozen other things.”
“Do you have any idea where he might be now?”
Holloway shook his head. “I can’t say as I do. I do know, however, that he has some bad men with him.”
“An army?” Smoke asked.
“You might say that. Angus Shardeen was a colonel in the Union Army during the war . . . though there are some who dispute that. He was actually a Jayhawker, operating at the head of a gang of guerrillas, supposedly riding in support of Union troops. But his tactics were so brutal, and quite frankly, so self-enriching, that if he ever did actually hold a commission, it was probably withdrawn.
“Since the end of the war, he has continued the guerrilla operations using many of the same men, only it is without regard to any cause, other than his own.”
“Bein’ as you are a U.S. Marshal, would you have the authority to go after ’im, no matter where he is?” Preacher asked.
Holloway nodded. “I would.”
“And say there was somebody who was a Deputy U.S. Marshal, say it was someone that you appointed. Would that fella also be able to go after Shardeen, no matter where he might be?”
“Yes, he would. Tell me, Preacher, why are you asking me all these questions? Do you know where Shardeen is?”
“I don’t have ’ny idee where he is, but if you was to appoint Smoke as one of your deputies, he’ll find ’im for you.”
Holloway looked over at Smoke. “Do you have an idea as to where Shardeen might be?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what makes you think you’ll be able to find him, when I haven’t.”
“Marshal, you bein’ the law for this whole territory, I would expect that you have a lot more things to do than just look for Angus Shardeen, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
“I don’t and I intend to find him,” Smoke replied with grit.
“And you want me to appoint you deputy so that you can?”
“No, sir.”
“No?” Holloway looked over at Preacher in surprise. “Look here, isn’t this what you just asked me to do?”
“I mean no, sir, I don’t want you to appoint me deputy so I can find him,” Smoke said. “I intend to find ’im, whether I’m appointed as your deputy or not.”
“You did hear me tell you that Shardeen was riding at the head of his own army, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I heard you say that.”
“Well, here’s the thing, Mr. Jensen. I don’t have funding for another deputy.”
Preacher spoke up. “Look here, Uriah. Sometimes when you form a posse to go after someone, don’t you appoint them men in the posse as Deputy U.S. Marshals?”
“Yes, I do. But I don’t pay them.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” Smoke said.
“Let me get this straight. You are willing to be an unpaid deputy in order to go out, single-handed, to find Angus Shardeen, even though you know there are at least half a dozen with him?”
Smoke nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“You will have to function alone. I don’t have enough men to assign anybody to one specific task.”
“That’s all right.”
Marshal Holloway looked over at Preacher again. “Preacher, you go along with this?”
“I do.”
“All right, Smoke Jensen, raise your right hand.”
Smoke did as he was directed.
“Now, repeat after me. I Smoke Jensen . . .”
“I Smoke Jensen . . .” He continued with the oath as administered by Marshal Holloway. “Do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute all lawful precepts, directed to the Marshal of the United States for the District of Colorado, under the authority of the United States, and true returns make, in all things well and truly. And without malice or partiality, perform the duties of Deputy Marshal for the District of Colorado during my continuance in said office, so help me God.”
That done, Holloway reached out to shake Smoke’s hand. “Congratulations, Smoke. You are now a Deputy U.S. Marshal. That gives you full authority to arrest any fugitive, anywhere within the borders of the United States. That includes all states and territories.” Holloway smiled. “But you won’t be paid.”
“I understand.”
“But even though you won’t be paid, you still intend to bring him in.”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon? I thought that was the whole reason for appointing you a Deputy U.S. Marshal.”
“I won’t be bringing him in,” Smoke said cryptically.
* * *
Shortly afterward, Smoke took his hunt for Angus Shardeen public. He had a letter printed in newspapers all over Kansas, Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming.
To the murderer and bandit, Angus Shardeen.
You killed many women, children, and old men during the war. You have continued your murdering and killing since the war, having abandoned all pretense of patriotism, and are doing so for selfish reasons.
During your murderous spree, one of the women you killed was my mother, Pearl Jensen. I watched you do this, then you clubbed me down and left me for dead. You should have checked me more closely Shardeen, for I was not dead, and now I am coming for you.
I’m coming for you for my mother and for the families of all the innocents you have killed, and I am doing this, not for revenge, but for justice. That is because as an official Deputy United States Marshal, I have the power of the law on my side.
SMOKE JENSEN
“Who in the hell does this arrogant deputy marshal think he is?” Shardeen demanded angrily, after he read the letter in the newspaper.
“He tells us right there who he is,” Bartell said. “He is Smoke Jensen.”
“Is that name supposed to mean anything to me?”
“From what I’ve heard, he may be the fastest gun there is,” Bartell replied. “And they say he can shoot the eye out of a squirrel from a hundred yards away.”
“They say? Who says?” Shardeen demanded.
“People who have seen him shoot. He could give us trouble.”
“How much trouble can he be if he is dead? I want him dead,” Shardeen said. “And I’m willing to pay well for it.”